


Hi! This is Derek Calling from the Seventh Circle of Hell

by ChloeWeird



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Office, Flirting, Fluff, M/M, Museums, Shy Derek, Stilinski Family Feels, a bit - Freeform, call centre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 09:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8396386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChloeWeird/pseuds/ChloeWeird
Summary: This is it, Derek thought. This is the night that I go insane. He lost himself in a fantasy of getting up from his desk, snapping his headset over his knee and walking out of the call centre in a blaze of lilac air freshener-scented glory. What he'd probably end up doing was sinking to the floor, curling up under the desk and seeing how long he could sleep there until a supervisor came over to--"Hello?" "Hi, this Derek calling from the Beacon County Natural History Museum. Can I speak to...Uh..."





	

Derek jolted out of his light doze and his chair returned to its upright position with a clunk. He scrubbed his face, hit the mouthpiece of his headset, and gave himself a full body shake. It had been an absolutely brutal night. The Beacon County Natural History Museum call centre wasn't exactly a hopping party palace on a normal night, but tonight had been especially dead because of some important baseball game people were watching instead of answering their phone, and it was taking its toll on all the employees.

Judy, who always sat in the cubicle across from him, had been back and forth to the washroom at least four times since supper break. The smell of nail polish from a manicure being touched up was wafting over to him, probably from Krista's desk. Bobby, like Derek himself, was definitely falling asleep listening to the phones ring uselessly as they dialed and dialed and dialed, trying to find someone who would pick up.

He clicked the dial button on the next person he was supposed to call. Then, he checked the time on his computer and groaned--a soft _amen_ drifted over from across the big room--when he realized only 10 minutes had gone by since the last time he'd looked. It'd felt like an hour, even as barely conscious as he'd been. And he had two more hours to go.

 _This is it_ , he thought. _This is the night that I go insane._ He lost himself in a fantasy of getting up from his desk, snapping his headset over his knee, sweeping the 10 year old computer still running Windows freaking _Vista_ to the floor and walking out in a blaze of lilac air freshener-scented glory. It was probably too violent, and what he'd actually end up doing was sinking to the floor, curling up under the desk and seeing how long he could sleep there until a supervisor came over to--

"Hello?"

"Hi, there--" Derek cleared the lump of disuse from his throat with a short cough. "Is Tammy available?"

"Yeah, this is Tammy."

Tammy didn't sound enthused. Derek could hear kids' voices in the background, loud and probably unhappy about something.

"Great," he said, injecting as much enthusiasm into his voice as he could, then wincing at how false it sounded. "My name's Derek, and I'm calling from the Beacon County Natural History Museum, and--"

"Oh, we aren't signing up for summer camp this year, thanks."

"Sorry to hear that, but actually, Tammy, I'm calling for a different reason." He winced again and sat back heavily in his creaky chair. He never seemed to be able to casually drop people's names into conversation, like other employees did. Apparently, it increased trust and got good results, but it just felt awkward when Derek did it. "I'm calling to see if you'd be willing to make a donation to the museum this year. We do lots of important work in preservation and education, and admission fees alone can't cover the costs of maintaining--

"I'm not interested, sorry."

"Sure, Tammy, and for our records, is there any particular reason why you--"

Click. She was long gone. Derek sighed and rubbed his temples. The first human being he'd spoken to in over an hour, and the call hadn't lasted--he checked the log--a full 30 seconds. That was just perfect. A stab of guilt went through him, and he tried to shake it off, but it wasn't easy. He couldn't stop himself from thinking that another employee, a more "assertive" one, would have been able to keep good old Tammy on the phone longer, maybe even long enough to get her to change her mind about that donation.

He wasn't cut out for this job, he thought, bitterly, for what felt like the thousandth time. He didn't have the gift of the gab like some of the other callers did, and he was way too awkward a person to be good at casual conversation with strangers he couldn't even see face to face. (As if being in the same room would help at all. He was too awkward, period, to be trustworthy or persuasive.)

He paused the auto-dial on his phone and got up, stretching his back and legs until they didn't feel like they were half their usual length. He got a paper cup from the sink and sipped some tepid, metallic-tasting water, staring blankly at the wall until he could convince himself to sit back down.

Half an hour--an endless, silent half an hour--later, someone actually picked up again. Wonder of wonders. According to the log, this person had been called seven times in the last month and a half, and nine times last fall, and hadn't answered a single time.

"Hello?"

"Hi there, is Georgie available?"

Silence. 

Derek knew the guy hadn't hung up, because he could hear faint voices in the background. He waited out the quiet for a few seconds, wondering if the network was having lag problems again, and was just about to ask his question again when the guy spoke.

"What?"

Derek had never heard a more incredulous word. Had the guy been napping when he'd called? He sounded like he was waking up from a year long coma and was having to learn English all over again.

"I'm looking for Georgie Bunn? Is this the right number?" He tried, speaking a little slower and very clearly, in case the man was hard of hearing. He hadn't sounded that old, though.

More silence, but again, no click of a phone hanging up. He watched the seconds count upward on the phone and tried not to panic. This weird person might be his last chance to make the museum some money before his shift was over, so he wasn't going to waste it just because they weren't big on words.

"Uh. My name's Derek, and I'm calling from the Beacon County Natural History Museum. We wanted to--"

At first, all he heard was a wheezing, and this time, he did panic. Was this person having a heart attack or something? What would he even do if that was the case? Hang up and hope for the best? Or was he allowed to call an ambulance? But he'd have to give the paramedics somewhere to go, and that meant telling them the address Mr. Bunn had on file, which might not even be right, since the file was two years old, and it was against their privacy policy anyway, and he could get in major trouble--

He was saved from making that decision by a gasping noise, then a wet snort, then a loud and unmistakable guffaw. The guy wasn't dying. He was laughing.

Derek frowned, and his hand tightened on his pencil. He'd been reverse prank called before, but usually the asshole doing it at least made a "joke" before killing themselves with their own wit.

"Mr. Bunn?" He persisted, just to be able to say he did all he could. "Are you still there? If now isn't a good time--"

"That's not my name," Not-Mr. Bunn choked.  

"Oh." Great. There went any slim chance he'd had at fundraising the amount of money the museum had paid him to sit and listen to dial tones all night. "I could call back when Georgie is available--"

"Georgie is my _cat_."

Derek blinked, then turned up the volume on his phone and adjusted his headphones. "Your...your cat."

"Yes!" The guy squeaked, then he was gone again, letting out peals of laughter that made the phone buzz and crackle on the other end.

Derek was stunned speechless for a few seconds, then, as he listened to the infectious laugh of Not-Mr. Bunn, he leaned on his desk and let his head fall into his hands, giving in to the urge to laugh himself. It wasn't very professional, but god, what a night. He deserved a bit of levity to help him make it through to nine o'clock.

The guy on the other end of the line tried to pull himself together a few times, only to sputter Mr. Bunn and dissolve into giggles again. Eventually, he was able to get himself under control, through a bit of deep breathing that made him sound a little like an owl, then he cleared his throat.

"Wow, you just made my night, I have to tell you. I'm so glad I decided to actually answer this time."

Derek wiped his eyes and grinned at his computer screen. "Glad to be of service."

"I have to ask, though, dude. Why are you calling for my cat?"

"His name is on the file that belongs to this phone number, I had no idea."

"Huh. Where did you say you were calling from again?"

"Beacon County Natural Hist--"

"Oh my god, I remember now!" There was a faint smacking sound, which was probably the guy facepalming. "I applied for a job as a camp counsellor a couple of years ago. I wanted to access parts of your website that only members could see, but I didn't want the interviewers to look up my name in the system and see that I'd only bothered to do some research at midnight the night before. Georgie sounded more legit than John Smith."

"I see." Derek twirled the wire of his headset around his finger and considered trying to keep the conversation on a professional track. Maybe on another night, he might've, but today? He had nothing to lose. "You didn't want them to know the truth, then."

Instead of getting offended, the man thankfully snorted a laugh. "That's fair," he said. "Well, I didn't get the job, so I guess there's no harm in using my real name now. Can you change it?"

The address _was_ the same, it turned out, but email was different, so Derek changed that along with the name. Mr. Stilinski--"Call me Stiles, please"--kept chatting while Derek recorded the new info.

"I really do like the museum," he said, sort of wistfully.

"But you haven't used your account since you made it?"

"Not once." Stiles' sheepishness was audible, and Derek wondered if he was wincing, or hiding his face with a hand. "Which is stupid, because I keep telling myself I should go, and I never do. I used to visit all the time, it was a yearly thing with my mom. We'd always save the bird exhibit for last, because it's the coolest one."

"I agree." It wasn't like he could really disagree with a potential donor, but this one time, he actually did feel the same way. "But I get it. I've heard every excuse about why people go from visiting every year to never coming at all. You skip it once, and it's harder every year after that to remember why you loved it in the first place."

"Yeah, that's it exactly."

"So, why'd you stop? If you don't mind me asking," he tacked on, reminding himself that he was still at work, and he wasn't just having a chat for the hell of it. It was odd. He usually had such a hard time relaxing into a good conversation with a patron, but with Stiles, it was pretty easy. He wondered if that was just the kind of person Stiles was, or if maybe he was just losing his inhibitions along with his sanity with every minute that passed.

"Uh, my mom died," Stiles said, and Derek's better mood faded. "She always used to take me. Sometimes my dad would come too, but it was kind of our thing."

It wasn't a new excuse. He'd heard many times before from people who couldn't come back because they had too many memories of loved ones they used to visit with. No, it wasn't a unique excuse, but it was a good one.

"I'm sorry," Derek said, wishing he could convey how sorry he actually was, but there was only so much he could do when he was staring at a screen instead of in the room next to him.

"It's okay. It's been a long time. Her name's on the donor wall, actually. She loved flowers, but not the store-bought bouquets, only the ones that grew wild. My dad took a collection at her funeral and gave it all to your botany department."

"That's great. What's her name? Maybe I'll recognize it." He'd spent enough time reading all the names when he was on-site. The museum had a lot of benches, and all the best ones seemed to be placed right in optimal viewing distance of the massive glass panels of major donor listings.

"Claudia Stilinski."

"Oh, yeah. In the West wing, right?"

"I don't know, I've never actually seen it. They sent us a picture, but we just couldn't…"

"I understand. Well, it's still there, so when you do come back, you can see it then."

"Awesome. Man, I really want to visit now. You're good at your job."

"Thanks."

"So, if I come this weekend, will I see you there? Now that we're buddies, and all. I mean, I've told you my sob story, and you're on a first-name basis with my cat..."

He'd been asked the question before, usually by lonely older women who liked the sound of his voice. He always felt uncomfortable when it happened, and stammered through a quick end to the conversation. Derek could tell that Stiles didn't mean anything by it, though.

"Probably not," Derek said, genuinely regretful. "I don't usually work on-site."

"Too bad, I would have loved to meet the guy who called my cat for a quick chat about his account details."

Derek laughed again, and he could almost feel Stiles' smile through the phone. He wondered what it looked like. He knew Stiles was a young guy, because he'd given his age for his profile, but he had no clue about any other defining features he might have. Who knew, Derek might have met him before. It wasn't too far-fetched to imagine they might have run into each other in a coffee shop, considering how small Beacon Hills was.

Derek looked at the call log and was shocked to see how long they'd been talking. He adjusted his headset and sat up straight, reminding himself that he was still on paid time, no matter how much fun he'd been having.

"You should come anyway," he said, switching his voice to his slightly phony professional tone. "It'll be worth it. The documentary theatre has some really interesting stuff playing."

"Awesome. I'll take your word for it."

The voices that had been chattering in the background got louder, and he heard Stiles whisper something inaudible to whoever was with him. Derek took this as his cue to wrap it up. "Well, we hope to see you soon."  

"You will, for sure this time. I'll put it in my schedule, no skipping out."

Derek heard that one all the time, too, but something told him he wasn't just being blown off. He could imagine Stiles phoning his dad and teasing him into agreeing to go with him. Assuming his dad was still alive. Derek shook himself. He didn't know Stiles at all, he shouldn't be imagining him doing anything.

"Great. Have a good night, Stiles-Not-Georgie."

"You too, Derek from the Natural History Museum."

Derek pressed the button to end the call and allowed himself a moment to sit and recover from one of the oddest calls he'd ever had. It'd probably make a great story at the watercooler, but he didn't think he'd ever mention it. (They didn't even have a watercooler, anyway. It'd been replaced by a Keurig machine, and the office had never looked back to the caffeine-deprived part of their lives.) It'd made him laugh, sure, to be told the person he was looking for wasn't actually a person, but it probably would lose something in the telling, and besides, Stiles had told him a few things about his mother that felt kind of personal. It didn't feel right to mention Stiles at all, when that was the sort of memory he associated with the museum.

He looked at the clock and his smile dimmed a bit. He was closer to quitting time now, but he still had over an hour to go, and he'd be willing to put money on the prediction that he'd speak to no more than two people before he clocked out.

He sighed and exited out of Stiles' file, a little reluctantly. There was a good chance he'd never speak to Stiles again, but Derek could always hope he'd pop up in a list of potential donors for him to call next year.

He blinked at his screen. "Shit," he hissed.

He'd suddenly realized that in the entirety of the longer-than-average conversation he'd had with Stiles, he'd never actually asked if he wanted to make a donation.

Derek let his head thunk to the lemon flavoured disinfectant-tainted desk. He was terrible at this job.  

***

"And here's your tickets. Have a good time, and don't forget to review us on Yelp when you're finished."

What a day. Derek hadn't worked the admission booth in a couple of months, but with the number of people lined up to buy tickets, it hadn't taken him long to get back into the swing of things. The unseasonable weather was bringing in the crowds, but Derek didn't mind at all.

He liked this part of his job a lot better. He could make change, hand out pamphlets and point out the nearest washroom with no problem, easing into the routine comfortably, and on a busy day like this one, the hours flew by.

"I can help who's next, please," he called down the line of ticket windows. A young guy approached his wicket, alone, oddly. They had a hard time getting people in this guy's  demographic, and when they did come, it was usually on a date with a girl who was much smarter than them. (Sure, that was a bit of an generalization, but he'd seen enough guys try to overcompensate by spouting off random facts they'd just read off the information panels to believe the stereotype.)

"Hi. One adult admission, please," the guy said, pleasantly, but he wasn't looking at Derek. He was too busy craning his around the atrium, staring at the brightly coloured posters and fabricated animal skeletons.

"Sure. Do you have an account with us?"

"Yeah, actually."

"What's the last name?"

"Stilinski. That's S-T-I-L--"

Derek stopped typing. "Stiles," he blurted.  

It was _Stiles_. Stiles, whose voice Derek had been hearing in his head for the past week. He'd heard it laughing, teasing, getting softer with memories of old grief, and Derek had extrapolated, wondering how it might sound if he were tired, or annoyed, or in love. Derek had begun to miss the voice as it faded and started to get harder to recall, but he'd never stopped wondering what Stiles looked like.

And he was...gorgeous. Tall and lean, with an interesting face and a smile that turned blinding when he grinned. "Yeah!" He said. "Wow, that was fast, you--"

"It's Derek."

He regretted saying it as soon as it left his mouth. As if Stiles couldn't see that from his name tag. As if Stiles would even remember his name from a weird five minute conversation--

Stiles' big, bright eyes brightened even further, and he stuck out a hand for Derek to shake. "Oh my god, Derek, my man! I thought you said you weren't going to be here."

As soon as the handshake was over, Derek wiped it on his uniform pants. Why was he so nervous? Stiles was just another patron, even if they'd talked before.

"I'm not usually," he admitted. “I'm just filling in--"

"Excuse me, which way are the dinosaur bones?"

Derek startled, and turned to the lady who'd butted in line. Behind her, he could see Caitlyn at the info desk rolling her eyes at him and throwing up her hands at the cheerful "Ask Me!" sign posted above her head.

"Down the hall, take a left at the fountain." He pointed to the seven foot tall banner next to the ticket booths, the one with the massive red arrow and the words _Dinosaurs this way!_ "Follow the signs, they'll lead you right to them."

As she walked away, Derek stole a look at the line up behind Stiles. It wasn't getting any shorter, and there was at least one kid who looked close to a nuclear meltdown. He needed to get moving, but Stiles... 

"I'm sorry," Stiles said, taking the decision out of Derek's hands. "You're busy, I'll leave you to it."

"No, it's fine, I'm…" Derek peered around Stiles, saw that he queue had gained another two families and sighed. "Yeah, it's crazy here."

"No worries. I'll get out of your hair."

Stiles dug his wallet out of his jeans, forked over the admission price--the student rate, even though Derek hadn't asked for ID, and he was probably out of college, and Derek made his change.

Derek was probably imagining it, but he thought that Stiles looked sort of...disappointed. Was that because he couldn't stand around talking to Derek, this virtual stranger who'd just taken his money? It didn't make a lot of sense to Derek, but as the printer chugged out a single ticket, he felt the same way Stiles looked.

As he was handing the ticket over, he felt something in him clench, and he was moved by the spirit of the museum's founder, or maybe the first person who'd broken ground in Beacon Hills, or maybe just an average person with more confidence than Derek had on his best day. Whatever it was, he took a breath and mumbled, "I'm done at 2:30." It was just past two, according to the clock on the wall, which was reliably five minutes slow.

"Oh." Stiles visibly perked up a bit. "Do you want to, maybe--"

"I could show you around." Was he shouting? He couldn't tell, he was too nervous. Where the hell was he getting this bravery?

Stiles smiled, and it was like the sun had decided to shine through the tall glass windows right into Derek's eyes. "Awesome. I'd love that."

"I'll meet you in the west wing? By the discovery centre." He jerked his head in the direction the lady had gone. "Follow the signs."

Stiles flashed a double thumbs up. "Got it. See you, Derek."

Stiles walked away through the bustling main hall, his long legs eating up the distance. Before he slipped around the corner that led to the west wing, he turned around, caught Derek staring after him, and winked. Derek looked away quickly and called the next person, hoping that his blush would be mistaken for a sunburn. In October.

***

At 2:47, Derek reached the end of the last hallway before the discovery centre and slowed himself down, hoping Stiles wouldn't be able to tell he'd been speed walking the whole way there. He'd barely stopped himself from running, if he was honest.

His heart beat quickly as he rounded the corner and saw Stiles sitting on a bench. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. He had no reason to believe Stiles was interested in him as something more than his "buddy" who'd called for his cat that one time. Sure, his eyes held a sort of mischievous sparkle when he'd all but laughed at Derek for staring at his ass as he walked away, but that didn't really mean anything.

He wiped his palms on his jeans and walked over to the bench. His heart fluttered like a teenager's as he sat down and Stiles smiled up at him.

"She's still here," Stiles said, pointing at his mom's name on the wall.

"I told you."

Stiles nodded, his eyes glued to the letters and shining suspiciously. "You did. Thanks. I owe you one."

Derek looked down at his hands, clasped, white-knuckled between his knees. Where was that stupid bravado he'd had earlier? He knew he was probably supposed to say something, break the awkward silence with some small talk, but his brain's connection to his mouth was frozen. He was so sure he'd say the wrong thing, something insensitive about Mrs. Stilinski, or let out how much he wanted this to be a date when he had no idea if it was anything of the kind.

"I'm glad I came today," Stiles said, leaning back on the bench and grinning, his eyes bright for a different reason now.

God, he was cute, Derek thought, and he swallowed, hoping he wasn't visibly drooling over the colour of Stiles' eyes or the shape of his lips.

"That's wonderful," he croaked, then he cleared his throat and tried to talk like a normal person, falling back on what he knew. "The museum is better than ever, and it's got a great atmosphere on busy days like this--"

Stiles huffed a laugh and bumped his shoulder into Derek's. "No, I mean I'm glad I came on the day you were working."

Derek's chest warmed from the inside and his cheeks started to hurt from suppressing a way bigger smile than was appropriate. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Derek felt something touch his thigh, and he looked down to see that Stiles' hand had shifted so that the edge was barely brushing Derek's jeans. It was way too deliberate and almost intimate a touch to be a casual jostle between good buddies. He looked back up and Stiles was biting his lip and looking intensely into his eyes. He looked...as nervous as Derek felt.

 _Oh_ , Derek thought. _So this_ ** _is_** _a date_. With far less hesitancy than he would have had a few minutes earlier, he put his hand on the edge of his thigh and let it meet Stiles', almost jumping at how warm Stiles' skin was, even though he knew it was coming. 

"That's...awesome," he stammered, losing any cool he might have had when Stiles smiled again, even more blindingly than before, but with a hint of merry trouble-making.

"Totally awesome. You know what else is awesome?"

"What?"

He jerked his chin toward the entrance of the movie theatre next to the discover centre. "That butterfly documentary. I stared at that poster for 10 minutes and I still can't get over those colours."

Derek felt another tiny part of him pitch into something like love at the sight of Stiles' childlike wonder. "Do you want to see it? I can get you free popcorn."

"My hero. And if I have to yawn, and my arm ends up across the back of your chair?"

"I wouldn't mind."

Stiles jumped up and put his hands on his hips, looking down at Derek in hilarious mock disapproval. "Why, Derek. That's probably not going to lead to anything educational."

Derek stood up as well and knocked his hip against Stiles' as they walked toward the movie theatre. "I'm willing to risk it," he said. "I think I'm about to learn a lot about someone I'd like to get to know."

"Hmm. Well, perhaps you ought to conduct a survey if you want more information. I'll give you my number and leave my phone on, just in case."

When Stiles was finished entering his digits into Derek's phone and darted off to check when the next showing of their movie was, Derek put it back into his pocket with care. Despite the fact that he made calls for a living, he wasn't that great at phone etiquette, but he was pretty sure that was one call he'd be happy to make.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this self-indulgent piece of fluff. It was spawned by a particularly slow night at my job and a true story...someone at my work really did call someone and ask to speak to their cat. I have no idea if this is actually as funny as I thought it was, but...*Shrugs*
> 
> I'm going to start posting a longer fic on Sunday. My first Steter, which is pretty much as different as you can get from this one. 
> 
> Don't forget to kudos and comment on your way out if you liked this!


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